Fall From Grace
by theotherthompson
Summary: The events before, during and a bit after Life Lessons in Tachibana Daichi's point of view. Tachibana Daichi is sixteen when he loses his virginity, eighteen when he kills someone, twenty one when he takes over as the head of the Tachibana-gumi and twenty two when he finally starts to heal. Warnings and full summary inside. Read Life Lessons first.


**Author's Note: **This is the events before, during and after Life Lessons in Tachibana Daichi's point of view. I threw in some slash for the fun of it, and then I threw in some vague sex scenes. Wow. (And I chucked in some Harry Potter references for good measure.) First time ever doing so, so please don't slay me? _**Still completely fantastical. **_

God, I don't know anything about the other side of the law, so this story must seem stupid . . .

**Author:** C.S. Thompson

**Summary: **AU. OC-centic. The events before, during and a bit after Life Lessons in Tachibana Daichi's point of view. Rated M. Tachibana Daichi is sixteen when he loses his virginity, eighteen when he kills someone, twenty one when he takes over as the head of the Tachibana-gumi and twenty two when he finally starts to heal. He is only ten when he decides that the world is the most vile place in existence. But hey, it's his kind of purgatory.

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** Bullying, violence, mentions of rape, some slash (sexual actions between two males) between minors, mentions of sex between minors, mentions of sex between adults, death, swearing, mentions of religion in a not so polite way, crime, drugs and some psychological stuff. OC-centric, OCs.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! in any shape or form (or Harry Potter). I am not making any money out of this fanfiction. I do own all original characters mentioned, though. Quote below is by Patrick Campbell.

~ ' * ' ~

**Fall From Grace  
**

~ There can be a fundamental gulf of gracelessness in a human heart which neither our love nor our courage can bridge. ~

_'It's always darkest before the dawn.'  
_

~ ' * ' ~

Daichi's mother is a whore.

Or rather, she was, but it makes little difference in the eyes of others. She's a beautiful woman whose confidence in her body _shows_. Her hips sway when she walks, her brown eyes are sultry and her lips are always painted with blood red lipstick. The clothing that she wears is always dark in colour, which contrasts just so with her smooth pale skin and reddish brown hair.

Maybe his mother did seduce his father, but it hardly mattered now. Somehow, someway, Tachibana Akiyoshi managed to seduce the fiery redhead too. They make a strange pair, but they look good together.

She has born two children for his father. Daichi himself and his older sister Miki. Daichi is a mix of his parents. He has his mother's eyes but his father's black hair and chiseled features. He inherited his mother's lean body and smarts, but his father's cunning mind and strength. Miki is a different story. She inherits every physical feature of his mother but inherits his father's demeanor and mind.

There are whispers in the family that Miki will be the one to lead the family next, despite being a girl. She reminds everyone too much of Akiyoshi's mother, the one who led them when grandfather died and Akiyoshi was only a child, to not be given a fair chance. Miki doesn't like it, she likes reading books and talking with her friends at school and playing sports, but she has never liked the people in the Tachibana-gumi.

Daichi's mother is the same. She dislikes the yakuza, but tolerates them because of Akiyoshi and only Akiyoshi.

- X -

Daichi is six and a half when the jeering starts.

They tease him because of his mother, mostly. The teachers don't mind it, ignore it really, because they are either scared or they hate him too. That is the problem with being yakuza. The teachers are trying their best to get him out of the school because they're afraid and the children, sensing the adults hesitance with him, mark him out as fair game.

Daichi sees others like him, bullied and teased because they're different from the mob, he sees the older ones like him and he sees what they have become. They flinch when others come near and don't speak up, they let others tear into them and go into a dark corner and place to lick their wounds in shame. He does not want to become that, no.

So he fights back fire with his own blazing fire.

It does not take long before he has his own fledgling gang made up of the strong, the broken, the smart and the loyal. Rikuo, a boy with brown hair and stormy blue-gray eyes quickly becomes his second in command, the others falling into place with time.

Daichi fights his way to the top in this twisted, safe version of the streets with wild abandon, because he is the type that does not do things halfway.

It is funny that, even on a play ground where children not even in their double digits play, one can see the flaws of humanity. Daichi, perceptive yet insensitive Daichi, sees it all with keen brown eyes. He sees cruelty, hate and betrayal. Petty fights, cheating and the casual callousness of people. He sees kindness, happiness and friendships form. He catalogs everything with a brilliant mind and sees.

He sees that this is just the beginning.

- X -

When he is eight, his mother is kidnapped by a group of gangsters hoping to make it big.

Akiyoshi is furious, sending people out to look for her and alerting every single person in the family, even those too far away to do anything directly, that he wanted this 'White Wolves' group crushed as horrifically and cruelly as possible. Daichi knows that his father means every word he says, because his father never lies. He isn't really sure what's going on, but he knows it's serious when Akiyoshi fumes silently.

Akiyoshi never fumes. He is like a still lake. He is supposed to be calm and serene, not this raging ocean.

It scares Daichi just a bit. Enough to make him hide in his sister's room because his mother's room is empty.

Miki seems to know what's going on, in a vague way. She is on the lookout for anyone suspicious, making sure she is never alone and taking care of Daichi as if she has always been doing so. Daichi wonders what he is missing sometimes, but no on would talk to him and even his right-hand man was confused over what was going on in the Tachibana estate.

It is a week later when they finally find the hideout of the wannabe gang that is trying to worm its way into the yakuza scene. It's an abandoned mansion at the very outskirts of Kokuyo city, with wild forests on either side and only a dirt path to the front entrance. The raid on the place involves almost all of Akiyoshi's best men. They storm in, shoot every one in the knee or other joints, tie them up and neutralize any threat with a quick efficiency that would leave policemen gaping.

The only reason that the White Wolves members are still alive are because they have a nice little cell waiting for them in another complex owned by the Tachibana group, and their suffering is no where near up.

When they find Akiyoshi's wife, she is already free of the ropes that she had been tied up in, stealing clothes from the unconscious and bleeding bodies found in the same room as her because her clothes were too ripped up to be usable. In the confusion she had dealt with her captors by herself. Not one of Akiyoshi's men comment on the bruises that littered her body, the small, scabbed over cuts or the dried blood running down her inner thigh.

When they get home Akiyoshi makes his wife tell him everything that happened to her in the privacy of their personal room. Daichi listens silently in the air vent, making a mental note to look up the word rape.

- X -

At nine, Daichi goes to the hospital.

It's nothing so serious, really. He just sprained his ankle (and bruised a rib, fractured his arm, pulled a muscle and lost two baby teeth).

It had happened just outside of school. His group had been ambushed by another group one year older than them. Apparently they had messed with the leader's crush's younger brother's friend, and he didn't like that. Peace negotiations were tried and failed, because both groups were just a bit too antsy and one of Daichi's idiots had thrown the first insult.

Then again, Daichi was the one to throw the first punch.

The fight was downright horrible. Daichi's group was outnumbered, smaller in size and had little experience with fighting, so of course the majority of them went down fast. But Daichi doesn't know when to give up and Rikuo is too stubborn to ever stay down and Tetsuya has a lot of pride, so the three of them kept fighting until they beat back the older boys.

It's Daichi's first real battle and his first real victory, but he recognizes that they had only won through pure luck.

He does not know how to fight properly, and he knows that those boys would come back once they were done nursing their wounds and whining to their parents, teachers and anyone who would listen. He knows that making a fist and swinging wildly won't keep him alive long, too. Not in the real world. He thinks quietly as he tunes out the doctor that drones on and on about violence not solving anything and how only bad people would resolve to conflict.

He decides to learn how to fight as soon as possible then teach his group how, because he had watched that Harry Potter movie last night, and he agrees with the snake boy too.

_There is no good or evil. Only power, and those too weak to seek it._

And Daichi intends to be as powerful as he could be.

- X -

Daichi is ten when his mother begins to teach him.

It was not things that Akiyoshi or anyone for that matter would approve of, either. But his mother did not care for social norms, just survival and the skills and knowledge needed for that survival. In Daichi's mind, morals hardly matter. They get in the way most of the time, and are frivolous excuses and lies the rest. No one truly followed them, they were so easy to bend and change.

His mother teaches him many things. How to lie, to manipulate and blackmail. She gives him books upon books to learn from, forcing him to accelerate his mental growth by a large percent. She gives him lessons on etiquette, pick pocketing, public speaking and moving in certain ways. She teaches him how contradictory the world is, with its wickedness and kindness all rolled into one. She teaches him everything she think will help him and Daichi soaks it up because he heard once that knowledge is power, and he craves for power, the power to protect and to destroy.

Miki is not taught with him. His mother says that she does not teach Miki because she is too much like her father to actually heed these lessons, so he pays it no mind. By the time his next birthday comes around he is just as charismatic as his father is, sly as his mother and thinks that he is finally gaining that power that he has searched for.

Miki is distant with the family, flinching away whenever the family business pops up in conversation or avoiding their father and his men. Daichi thinks that she is weak, but loves her all the same because she is family, and family takes care of each other.

When asked where she has been lately, because she's almost always out, she replies with her friend, and sometimes, she says with her boyfriend.

- X -

Thirteen is when Daichi's life starts to change.

He starts to notice certain people and starts to forget about a certain cooties. The other boys around him are going through the same changes, and now there is suddenly another element to the battlefield that is known as the playground. Girls.

His mother has taught him that the female race can be just as vicious and cruel as men in their own ways, so he is cautious around them.

He cannot help his curiosity about the other gender though, and finds himself adding some of the tougher, smarter, more useful girls into his ranks. The boys under his command are a bit leery of them, but with a warning look treat them equally, if a little distant.

There is one girl in particular that catches his eye. Suzuki Hanako is a calm, collected individual. She has short light brown hair and even lighter eyes. She is tall, lean and faster than most of the boys. She would be a good addition to his best men, Daichi thinks. She's smart enough. She gets along well with both his right-hand man Rikuo and his left-hand man Tetsuya. She even keeps everyone in line and gathers information by gossiping with the other girls for him.

Hanako quickly rises through the ranks, joining his friends at their place next to him with an ease that would have frightened someone else. Daichi is just glad that he has another person to count on, because his gang was growing far bigger than he anticipated and how was he going to deal with them all without some help?

Daichi makes strong bonds with each and every member of his little gang, but even he is not infallible, and cannot always help the others with their problems.

Rikuo, Tetsuya and Hanako are quick to cover his blind spots.

It is two weeks before Miki's birthday (_the sixteenth of April-_) that Daichi and his mother go out to buy her a present. They go to the jewellery store, because mother always said that women loved jewellery for gifts, and his sister deserves the best, really, for dealing with all the yakuza crap when she so obviously hated it and also for letting Daichi be just plain Daichi and his mother be who she is.

So they walk in and browse around, looking everything with such a critical eye that the manager is now trying to 'help' them, looking rather flustered. Daichi stops at the display case of one of the cheaper items for sale, staring at the necklace resting on the satin pillow. It's a small sapphire, cut into the shape of a tear and inlaid into a bed of golden metal. There are small, dainty bands of gold running across the surface of the sapphire, weaving around in delicate, swirling patterns.

"The sapphire is called the 'stone of destiny', you know," a jovial voice says next to him. Daichi glances up at the store manager, a polite smile stretched across his face.

Daichi finds it almost amusing when he looks at the necklace again. The swirling patterns now look like bonds caging the sapphire, and the deep blue and shape of it remind him of miserable tears. It is the exact opposite of the necklace next to it, the one made of amber and silver that looks sunny and free. He glances over at his mother with a look of contemplation.

After a moment of thought, he points at the orange necklace. "Ah, that's an orange sapphire."

"It looks like amber," his mother comments idly. The manager chuckles.

"We get that a lot. Amber is supposed to promote good luck and success, one of my personal favourites, really."

Daichi decides then that he would buy both of them and have both of them engraved with the words '_You are loved_' for Miki. He would give the blue one to her on her birthday while keeping the other for himself. He tells his mother of his plan and she agrees to them, allowing herself to spoil her only son this once. The manager is happy that they have finally decided, promising to notify them when the engraving was done.

Two weeks later, Daichi finds himself giving the orange sapphire to his sister. The blue one is in a small box, hidden expertly in his room. He doesn't know why he decides to give the one that he had claimed as his to Miki, but he figures it has something to do with the conversation that they had last night. The one where his sister told him that she feels caged by the Tachibana-gumi.

Giving her the necklace that pretty much described what she felt for her birthday would be like a slap to the face, Daichi muses.

His mother gives him a sharp look when he lies and says that the orange sapphire is instead an amber stone, but says nothing. He does not know why he lies about that either. Maybe because he still remembers the flustered managers voice telling him the meaning of the stones, and does not want his sister to think that it is her destiny to be forever caged.

- X -

At fourteen, Miki finally runs away.

Her boyfriend had told her that he was moving to a different city earlier that week, and had asked her to come with him. Daichi knows because he listened to the conversation on his phone. Hanako had saw them and recorded the conversation before sending it to him. Nonchalantly, Daichi decides to reward her before going to have a talk with his sister.

When he finally confronts her, she is packing her bag in a hurry, the night before she is to leave with her boyfriend.

She tells him many excuses, like she loves Toshi too much to just let him leave, that she wants more opportunities and the city that she is going to has plenty (he notes that she is careful not to give him the name), that the city is so much safer, even that she does not want to end up like their mother. Daichi almost believes the last one, because who would stay when there was the chance that their lives could go to hell?

But he doesn't, because he knows Miki better than that, and he can see in her eyes it's a different reason.

It takes a bit of prodding before she finally tells him. She wants to be free, to make her own decisions. She won't get it here, where family is everything, she tells him.

A cold rage settles in his stomach, because what she had just said to him in tantamount to betrayal. Family is everything to Daichi, because when the world burned who else was there that would recognize you after what you've become?

So what his sister is saying makes her a traitor, and no sympathy should be given to traitors. He lets her go, knowing that wherever she goes she will always be caged. Her boyfriend Toshi may be kind now, but Daichi recognizes that perpetual anger in his eyes. Toshi will not stand the thought of Miki wandering away for someone newer, better than him, because he is an angry and possessive person.

Daichi recognizes that look in Toshi's eyes because it's the same look that he's seen on people in the yakuza. Because it's the same look that sometimes enters Daichi's eyes.

The blue sapphire necklace in his room shines brightly underneath the moonlight when Daichi takes it out. He wonders what will happen now, before disregarding the thought and instead focusing on the necklace dangling in front of his face. The golden patterns on the blue surface no longer look delicate in his eyes, not when he remembers that gold is still a metal.

- X -

Daichi is sixteen when he has his first kiss with a girl.

It's just lips on lips, because the girl in front of him wants to take it slow and he has no experience. She thinks it's cute that she is his first, but Daichi doesn't like not being the best, not knowing, because it's just in his nature. She says to take it slow, that he'll get better with time and practice. But Daichi is impatient, too. It makes a rather bad combination.

When they do go a bit farther, he is left staring at the laughing girl in shock, because she had just jammed her tongue into his mouth and he had just yelped because _what the hell_?

He complains to Rikuo about it night after night. It takes over a month for him to work up his courage and ask Rikuo for help. He looks his best friend straight in the eye and asks how is it that girls are always moaning about how he is such a God damn good kisser. Rikuo is smirking darkly, because with five years of also being taught by Daichi's mother and years of knowing Daichi himself, he's just as fucked up as Daichi is. He knows everything about Daichi because he made it his mission to, and he knows that someone being better than him ticks Daichi off in so many ways.

People think that Rikuo is Daichi's better half, but they are wrong. Rikuo just hides all his imperfections while Daichi puts it up on display. Rikuo hides it so well that sometimes even Daichi forgets that Rikuo isn't so innocent. It's those moments that Rikuo decides to mess with Daichi. This is one such moment, where Daichi is asking for advice on kissing of all things from Rikuo of all people.

Rikuo motions for his friend to come closer, asking him in a very suspicious manner if Daichi wanted him to teach him. Rikuo is looking at him with eyes darker than usual, a gleam of something in eyes that he knew so well. Daichi, despite how mature he is, how certain in his belief that Earth is so vile, is fairly innocent of certain things. Things like sex, lust and carnal pleasures. His mother had yet to teach him such things, but Rikuo is another matter.

When Daichi says yes, Rikuo pulls him, and suddenly Daichi is straddling his friend and Rikuo's mouth is on his.

This is wrong, a small part of Daichi thinks. But it's squashed a moment later when Rikuo's tongue slides into his mouth, and, wow, it's nothing like what his girlfriend did. Daichi muses inwardly that he has already sinned some, and he no doubt would sin even more as he grows older. The world was not sunshine and daisies, not perfectly normal and totally acceptable, so why should his life be?

He's not going to heaven, he knows, and maybe that's part of the reason why Daichi starts to hesitantly slide his own tongue against Rikuo's. Faintly, he remembers the nights when his sister would kneel on the ground, her hands clasped in front of her tightly as she whispered pleads and prayers to a man in the skies that didn't do shit. He pulls away from Rikuo with a snort.

God have mercy on this ruined, black soul.

(His girlfriend doesn't giggle when he kisses her anymore. The same year, he loses his virginity in a haze of alcohol and stupidity, and he wakes up alone. The memories are blurred, but that's all just as well, because he doesn't want to remember the loss of innocence.)

- X -

At eighteen Daichi is a confident, poised young man.

His name is well known on the streets, along with the rest of the gang. He didn't understand why people felt the need to give his group a name, but they do and there is nothing he can do about it now. The Pride is what they're called. Rikuo says it has to do with Daichi's street name. One which was given to him a year ago but Daichi did not know of until now.

They call him the Black Panther. It has something to do with the way he walks, the way he handles his knives, his black trench coat.

Daichi thinks it's all just a bit stupid. He has only ever sent people to the hospital. He doesn't deserve the name, not yet. He maintains that the day he kills someone, maybe then he would use the name for himself.

Ironically, he kills for the first time that same year. He does it to protect Hanako during a street fight, when she is injured and distracted by another opponent when Daichi's victim sneaks behind her. They're the only ones fighting against a hoard of anonymous people, because they had only gone out for a walk when they had been attacked. It's startlingly easy to slip a knife through the nameless man's neck, horribly so. He doesn't have time to think about it because he has other people to deal with and he's not letting himself think about it until after the fight.

When the battle stops, Daichi is left feeling rather empty. In some books he has read, when people kill for the first time they are always shocked, puking, hysterical, crying or maybe all of the above. Daichi just finds himself wandering over the body and staring at both the bloodied knife in his hand and the stiff body on the floor. He's not sure what to think, exactly. The person at his feet is- was- another person, he probably had a family, _he's loosing so much blood_.

Hanako is the one that calls the compound for some help, because there's too many bodies for them to deal with themselves.

When he talks to his father about it, his father seems to understand his predicament. He tells him that killing another person never gets easier. The actions to do it do.

When Hanako slips into his bed that night because she needs comfort and apparently he wasn't the only on that killed that day, he says nothing.

- X -

At twenty years old, Daichi meets his nephew.

He meets his sister for the first time in years when she calls and arranges a meeting. It's strange to see her again when he enters the coffee shop in Namimori. She looks haggard, skittish as she practically hides her son underneath a big black coat. She drinking coffee, black, with the poise and grace that she was raised with. Daichi prowls over to her, Rikuo and Hanako either side of him. Tetsuya had stayed in Kokuyo to take care of things at home.

He sits down silently, not really minding when his two friends do not sit beside him, but sit at the table next to him. It's obvious that they're with him, but he appreciates the thought. Privacy with his sister is something the he both wants and doesn't, because he has no idea what she wants and no idea what he wants.

One glance at the little boy next to her tells him all he needs to know. Abuse, malnutrition show on his body, but the steady tempest in his eyes make Daichi think that he truly is a member of the Tachibana family. He almost smiles when the boy looks into his eyes and tries to give him his best glare. He looks away not even a minute later, but that is expected. Daichi hadn't been able to look his father in the eyes for long either. He wonders what the boy sees, a raging inferno or a steadily crackling warmth?

"His name is Morino." Miki says, breaking the silence just as the waiter comes up to take his order. He orders a cup of coffee, along with some cinnamon rolls for his nephew and sister before turning back. He gives a small smile, noticing the tired bags and the unhappy look on her face.

This is his fault, he thinks.

They chat idly about what she's been doing, how Morino is doing at school, but they never touch upon the topic of Toshi. Finally, after almost an hour, Miki blurts out why he's here when she could have just as easily stayed out of the Tachibana family's radar. "I'm sick." He raises his eyebrow. When she gives him some papers detailing her stays in the hospital- all payed for- he understands.

Miki's health is failing her and the boy next to her is his nephew.

"I'll take care of him."

He leaves with an address, a phone number and adoption papers.

A month later, when his sister finally dies, it's almost like a slap in the face when Morino dies too. Toshi, the husband of his sister, the father of his nephew, had strangled the youngest member of Daichi's family in a fit of rage. He almost goes back to Namimori to deal with that bastard himself, but he is stopped by almost everyone. He cannot blow the Tachibana-gumi's cover as a medical corporation by leaving behind obvious trails, they explain to him. He knows that, really, but Morino was _family_.

Rikuo deals with the situation by calling in a favour from a small yakuza family in the city his sister had settled in. They deal with Toshi wonderfully, and Daichi only has to come to handle the funerals.

He collects the orange sapphire necklace without looking anyone in the eye.

This is his fault, he thinks again.

- X -

Daichi becomes the head of the Tachibana-gumi at the young age of twenty one.

"Fuck you, man," Daichi snaps, throwing a piece of his lunch at Rikuo. Rikuo grins, catching the fry midair with easy reflexes that would make Harry Potter bow his head in shame. Daichi fumes silently for a few more moments, sort of bemoaning that his right-hand was an idiot that was too useful to send to the hospital. Sometimes, having Rikuo around was a blessing and a curse, rolled into one sunglasses wearing kid in a man's body that had an obsession with guns.

"Maybe later, you look pretty tired." Rikuo throws back, dodging the fork that is thrown next. Hanako is staring at them with a glazed look in her eyes, making Daichi wonder what she is thinking about before deciding that no, that way leads to nausea and unpleasant thoughts. Tetsuya, completely used to his friends antics, is casually flirting with the waiter like it's going out of style.

Daichi is acting all sorts of huffy now that he's out of that stuffy house where there's so much freaking paperwork, of all things, to do. He thinks that is maybe the reason why his father always had a pinched look on his face and also why he moved to Namimori as soon as he could. He gets a head ache just thinking about it- he has never been one for sitting down. He's the type to go out and do, not watch. His friends understand his plight and help as much as they can.

In a way, nothing has changed at all, despite all of them now being members of the yakuza. It's like back in their gang days, to be honest. All that's really changed is his title and position in his family, along with his friends, and the scale of the crap he does. And the paperwork. Idly, Daichi muses that perhaps his father and mother had been preparing him for his duties as soon as they could without him suspecting a thing. Akiyoshi has been teaching him the hierarchy and how to control large groups of people ever since he found out about Daichi's little gang.

The Pride is now a group of his best men (all ten of them, not including himself), fully integrated with the rest of the Tachibana-gumi. Just as Akiyoshi had a group of men that he could trust with his life, Daichi has the same thing.

Right now, the whole gang has booked up a tiny restaurant nearby the compound, just relaxing with each other after what has felt like ages.

"I really don't like that blonde guy," Rikuo complains, swiping Daichi's coke and taking a long drag. Daichi snorts, remembering the meeting they just had with a family from the Italian mafia. Cavallone is their name, he thinks, or something just as ridiculous. They had come over to bargain for an alliance and also try and sell some information about the goings on overseas for some medicine his family manufacturers and exports (_morphine, epzicom, vaccines, soriatane, antibiotics-_).

He had okay-ed the first offer and denied the second.

"You mean Dino?" Daichi questions, snatching Hanako's ice tea while she's distracted by squealing over some Pride member's photos of their kid. Rikuo nods, munching on some of his salad. Daichi raised a thin eyebrow, chewing on his own food and waiting patiently for an answer. Tetsuya yells something at Hibiki while Hanako turns back around and takes her cup out of Daichi's death grip. "What about him?" Daichi asks when he swallows.

"Is it because he's a natural blonde and you're not?" Hanako asks nonchalantly, shaking off Rikuo's glare. Tetsuya joins the conversation with a snort.

"Nah, he's just jealous," he says, grinning slyly at Rikuo and Daichi and giving Hanako a suggestive nudge. Hanako giggles lightly, catching on. When Daichi asks what they're talking about, they both give him a leer that makes him think that's he's digging his own grave. They do that a lot, Daichi thinks as he steals a piece of tomato from Rikuo's plate.

"He's jealous 'cause Dino-face was gettin' too close to you," Tetsuya sing-songs, while some of his men hoot and holler. It's an ongoing inside joke between them all, one that the rest of the Tachibana-gumi has been privy to for only two months.

Rikuo had let it slip that he and Daichi had kissed once when they were sixteen, and coupled with the fact that he is always close by to his boss, it wasn't long before rumors were spread. No one really cares that Daichi may or may not be homosexual. The Tachibana-gumi is made of outcasts and the odd people of society; they didn't give a shit if Daichi fucked men or not, so long as it wasn't spread to the public and he continued to do a damn fine job running things.

(And really, Daichi doesn't get it, because Rikuo knows everything about him and he knows everything about Rikuo. Rikuo is a part of himself, integral for him to work properly. The other man is so much like an extension of himself that Daichi finds it hard to think about him in a sexual manner, or any specific manner. They've spent so much time together that Rikuo stopped being a person. Rikuo just is. It's the same with all of the Pride.)

"'Dino-face' kept a respectable distance away from me, Tetsuya," Daichi says, trying to defend his honor and maybe failing.

Hanako decides to cut in then, "You show him around the compound without his men tagging along _once_, and he falls on you." Daichi doesn't blush when he remembers the rather suggestive position they were found in. It's bad enough that everyone thinks that Rikuo and he are together, but he is _not _okay with being thought of as the bottom in a relationship. He's never the bottom. Ask all the women he's spent a night with, they've got plenty to say.

"Oh yeah, Daichi," Rikuo calls after he's done insulting Tetsuya. "Happy birthday." He responds by stealing back his coke.

Daichi thinks that despite how his life is, he'll be okay.

- X -

Daichi is twenty three and a half when he first meets Tsuna.

The world is not suddenly right and amazing. To Daichi the world is still as depraved as ever. There is still corruption wherever he looks, there is still ignorance causing racial divides, unforgiving anger causing people to fight. The world is still a patchwork of black, white and gray, with places of healing scars and angry welts all over the Earth's surface. Daichi still thinks that the world is vile, and it's probably not going to get much better.

Daichi does not hold his breath when he meets perceptive and empathetic Tsuna. Tsuna does not idolize broken and unyielding Daichi.

This is Daichi's first meeting with the boy that would help him in his path of healing, and this is Tsuna's first meeting with the man that will help him find a home. Neither of them know it, and they're okay with that.

- X -

Daichi finds out that Tsuna knew Morino a two months later.

He finds out when Tsuna slips into his room and cries quietly into his shoulder while mumbling words under his breath. Daichi has always had keen ears, so he easily picks up words like Mori, park, Grandpa and friend. He puts two and two together when he sees the necklace glittering in Tsuna's hand. It is as pretty as he remembers, delicate and warm. Akiyoshi still thinks its made of amber, and apparently so does Tsuna.

Daichi thinks back to when he was thirteen. He had lied, and now not even his mother could tell anyone the truth because she is in the Americas because the loss of Miki was too much for her. He wonders if he should fess up, but not really thinking it as a viable option, because lets face it, he's twisted just enough to wonder how long this lie can last.

When Tsuna falls asleep Daichi is quietly kneeling next to him, thinking hard about what he is going to do next.

It doesn't take long, really. All he does is force himself to acknowledge that Tsuna is now an important part of his life, of the Tachibana family. He has always known that fact, but it's one thing knowing and one thing _knowing_. So Daichi shrugs, putting the necklace around Tsuna neck. Tsuna looks good with orange, he thinks absentmindedly.

A few days afterwards, Daichi finds himself pulling out the counterpart of Tsuna's necklace. The blue sapphire glints in the moonlight, but Daichi takes a deep breath and pulls it over his head. Maybe, he thinks, he's finally starting to forgive his sister for leaving.

"Getting in touch with your feminine side?" Tetsuya asks when he spots the blue glinting underneath his shirt. Daichi rolls his eyes with a smile, and Rikuo squeals in a totally manly way.

"Oh em gee, he's smiling!" Rikuo yells, gathering some looks from the other member of the Tachibana-gumi outside the office. Most shake their heads and go back to whatever they were doing before. Others don't even look up.

"I think Rikuo is doing a good job of that for the both of us." Daichi says with a mischievous smile. He hasn't bantered like this since he was a teenager, to be honest. It feels nice. Rikuo wolf whistles, and Tetsuya sort of gapes at him. They're both surprised, but Daichi doesn't pay it any mind as he signs another piece of paper. He makes a noise when the wind rushes in through the open doorway and messes with some of his neatly stacked piles of documents.

Rikuo doesn't even need to think before he's putting down the stapler on top of a pile, and some random pieces of candy on the others. "That kid's good for you," he comments as breezily as the wind. Daichi doesn't say anything, because he agrees.

It's almost too easy to say yes when his father asks Daichi if he could adopt Tsuna into their family.

(Himura Misaki casually volunteers her fourteen year old son to be Tsuna's bodyguard. Daichi talks to the kid and deems Mamoru good enough.)

- X -

Akiyoshi dies only a few months afterwards.

He dies when Tsuna and Daichi are together with him, like he was holding out until he could see both of them one last time. It's a slap in the face for Daichi, because his father has always been an unbeatable power in his eyes. He's the ocean; he's not supposed to dry up. Daichi is in a mix of denial, depression and rage, and he really does not want to talk about his feelings with anyone right now, so he buries himself in work and tells himself that he's doing this for the family.

He takes up smoking for no particular reason and doesn't really look at anyone in the face for no particular reason either.

He has an argument with Rikuo two month after his father's death. It starts because Rikuo has a troubled look on his face, like he wants to say something but is beating himself black and blue not to say it. Daichi is being a bit literal when he spots Rikuo pinching himself hard enough to give himself a bruise. So Daichi, because even when he feels rather horrible (he hasn't slept properly in weeks), he cares too much to let it go, asks what was bugging his second in command.

A lot, it turns out.

"-and you're not talking to anyone anymore!" Rikuo gasps, because he hasn't stopped to breath since he started ranting. "Can I speak frankly?"

Daichi nods.

"I sort of hate your old man right now. Wait! Here me out, please-" Daichi stops hitting him for a moment, because Rikuo almost never pleads. He deliberates.

"Five minutes."

"I hate him 'cause he died, and look what happened to you. You're a mess. Well, you were a mess before he died, but you were getting better. Then Akiyoshi ups and dies and you've thrown yourself off the deep end again, except now I think you've gone a bit deeper than last time, and I'm having trouble reeling you back in 'cause you aren't _talking _to anyone anymore- and I know, 'it's always darkest before the dawn' and all that crap, but still, man! You get what I'm saying?"

Daichi feels incredibly confused. He thinks it shows because Rikuo suddenly has a tired but fond grin stretching over his face.

"Don't worry, Daichi. I'll get you back home." Daichi wants to point out that he's already in his home, in his _room_, in fact. He doesn't because he looks into Rikuo's eyes and sees a calm rain instead of stormy eyes. _It'll be okay_, they say.

Rain always calms down a roaring fire.

- X -

A month before Tsuna's birthday (_the fourteenth of October-_), Daichi is standing outside the Sawada residence.

It is the scariest things he's ever seen, to be honest. Daichi almost snorts when he looks at the house and finds himself tensing all over again after Rikuo put so much effort into making him relax before he shoved Daichi onto the porch and fled behind some bushes. It looks plain, so normal that it's almost laughable, but Daichi is more afraid of who is inside.

He lifts his hand and hesitates, leaving his hand in the air uselessly before he drops it down. He wonders if Tsuna hates him for not being there for him all that time ago.

He hears a rustle of leaves and does not turn around when Rikuo wraps an arm around his neck. "You'll be fine, you know," he says quietly. Daichi shrugs, still staring at the doorbell like it holds the answers to the universe. Well, in a way it holds the answers to a few select questions that Daichi has. "Tsuna probably doesn't hate you."

"Probably," Daichi points out. Rikuo huffs, shaking Daichi a bit with the arm on his shoulder. The warmth seeping into Daichi through his trench coat feels familiar and safe, but Daichi still can't relax.

"Only one way to find out, right?" Rikuo shoots back. Daichi can't help the smile. "Now, I'm going to press this button, hide in the bushes, and it'll be okay," and Rikuo presses the doorbell without warning and dives back into the bushes with a muffled yelp, just like he said he would.

Tsuna appears in the doorway and Daichi's smile becomes a bit forced. The relieved exhale is heard by no one but Daichi himself and Daichi goes inside.

- X -

Daichi is twenty five when he makes his peace with life.

It's not perfect by far, no. His only remaining blood family is his mother, who is currently living in Spain with a new husband. Tsuna's father is throwing a fit about who Tsuna spends his time with after suddenly popping back into his life. That little hitman Reborn is getting on his nerves by continuously popping in and out of Namimori, always nearby Tsuna or at the same place as Tsuna. A rival family is getting arrogant. There are a lot of other things he could list.

But he decides with a glance at his family that it's okay.

Rikuo is regaling Tsuna with tales of their youth, the boy just nodding along patiently, a smile on his face. Mamoru, Tsuna's bodyguard turned friend is sitting on Tsuna's right, munching contentedly on food. Hanako, who had been in Italy when Tsuna had first been introduced to everyone (important, that is), is happily spooning out pasta onto everyone's plate while chatting with Misaki about soap operas. Tetsuya is lounging, taking up two or three more seats than he needs to, one of which is Daichi's own. The rest of the Pride have settled around the same small restaurant from all those years ago with easy familiarity.

Rikuo stops suddenly, glancing over at Daichi with a fox-like grin. "Daichi! I was just telling Tsuna about that time when we were sixteen-" he doesn't finish that sentence because Daichi has just thrown his phone at Rikuo's face.

The world may be a pretty strange rendition of hell, but hey, Daichi thinks when he looks at the mismatched group that has become his family. It's his kind of purgatory.


End file.
